Posted on 11/04/2009 7:08:49 AM PST by Bob J
Now that we sit her in incredulity as Doug Hoffman wanders off into the sunset, maybe it's a good time to take a moment and think about what just happened.
Modern politics is not won with torches and pitchforks from half way across the country which is what was attempted here. No, Scozzafava should never have been handed the nomination but it was an isolated, freakish situation brought on by the sudden departure of the incumbent and exasperated by everyday political insider dealing. To claim that it was an example of how GOP politics work everyday is hyperbole by those pushing a personal agenda.
But the usual suspects arose from their well pressed easychairs exhorting all of us to pick up torches and pitchforks and storm the bastille while shouting "kick the damn RINO's out!". They lead us astray and we end up committing precious time, resources and energy to ventures that are folly.
Nobody disagrees with replacing RINO's with better conservatives. But it cannot be done at the end of a scream and threat. Political change is accomplished through the everyday hard work of local politics and changing the hearts and minds of the voters who cast the votes for those RINO's or true conservatives IN THOSE DISTRICTS.
But the same over vocalized minority that led us to disaster in NY-23 will now, just as loudly, claim where the fault lay...the GOP "elitists", Steele, Newt, etc. Everyone but themselves.
The truth is the fault lay at their doorstep. It's time we stop listening to these chicken littles who scream loudly and then pray for the easy Hail Mary pass that will save us all. It rarely does. We must commit ourselves to the local work necessary for change. We must understand we cannot fly in from afar with our torches and demand other people vote and elect the candidates WE deem acceptable...that will only lead to contempt as I noted here three days ago.
We have to gently change their minds first before the change we desire will come. Shouting in peoples faces only gets them wet and you out of breath.
But the fault DOES lay with Newt, Steele, etc.
Kick the damn RINOs out.
not true.
This is how the blue blood country club works.
in the end the country club worked because they allowed scuzzy to endorse the other major party democrat and the gave crocodile praise.
Remember this is about making pay for candidacy money for the GOP. Scuzzy was an insider. Hoffman was not.
country club for the country club.
Now we have momentum, we take over the local GOPs.
This was a good race to learn from.
A commentator said last night that the district is going away after 2010 anyway. Redistricting has eliminated this district and absorbed it into surrounding congressional districts.
Hopefully, the lesson learned is that the GOP needs to bring in people committed to Republican principles.
We need to learn to choose our battles wisely. (And imo, this was a battle worth fighting, btw.)
I have followed your posts for some time on this subject. I can only speak for me - but I will go down in a principled defeat rather than a win that I cannot in good conscience support. I’m all about absolutes - I DON’T compromise for expediency so I guess I’m not to unhappy about the results
Let us be sure that those who come after will say of us in our time, that in our time we did everything that could be done. We finished the race; we kept them free; we kept the faith. - Ronald Reagan
The ONLY unanswered question to me is how did Scuzzy still manage to get 6% of the vote
Everything else is exactly what Conservatives thought and wanted- Conservative Hoffman came out of nowhere and kicked the GOP and the hand-picked GOP RINO out of the race
I respectfully disagree with your idea of a lesson learned. You have to break eggs if you are going to make an omelet. The Republican leadership needs to learn a lesson not the electorate. The Republican leadership wants our votes and our money but they want us to just shut up and let them do their back room deals of power sharing. It don’t work that way. We conservative electorate are real participants in the process. They must engage us. They must listen to us. This crap of “we know best” won’t work anymore.
If the leadership had got on board with Hoffman in the beginning, the GOP would have held that district. And what impotent jerks they are if they support a candidate with money and cannot keep her from endorsing the Democrat.
I am content with a Democrat holding that seat until 2010 with a good chance of turning him out rather than that bloated RINO who might have been able to keep that seat until who knows when. And all the time casting votes to stab us conservatives in the back. No thank you.
RINO’s put up by RINO’s were rejected by the people well before the ballot box. Scozzafava was indistinguishable with other progressives in everything but the “R” after her name. Pro abortion, pro union, pro stimulus. The people had enough.
Hoffman was a weak speaker and had a quirky personality. Yet, he scored 45.4% of the vote as a third party candidate. With the knee jerk Scozzafava 5.5% vote that put Owens in at 49.1%. Did he run as a whack job progressive or as a fiscal conservative?
No, the National Republicans and the establishment RINO’s were called out on the carpet for not following conservative principles. This was McCain's lesson not learned one year later. Maybe they will learn it now? Will you?
Sorry, disagree with this post completely.
This loss is clearly at the feet of the idiots who picked Dede in the first place. They put up, in their “moderate” wisdom an absolutely abysmal candidate. Owens was up long before Hoffman entered the race. Had Dede remained in she would have most likely lost the race, she was a horrible candidate.
Had the R’s put up a conservative its a safe bet they would have won the seat, instead they put on a R that was in essence a D, proven by her actions without question.
The straight party line voters, walked into the voting booth, pulled the PARTY LINE R lever and walked out were the majority of DEDE’s votes, had the R’s put up a conservative they would have won.
Getting rid of a RINO before they are in office and you are dependent on them is a GOOD THING. Because they WILL bite you, when you need and depend on them, they will betray you. So better they never be in office to begin with.
DEDE wasn’t a “moderate” republican, she was a liberal republican who like spectre and others should have been a D all along, for crying out loud she’d contemplated running as a D for this very seat and admitted as much, why oh why did the R put her up? Let alone spend $1MM+ money supporting her?
Hoffman didn’t win the election, but it was the R leadership that cost the seat, not the voters.
Nonsense.
The GOP played old party politics and appointed a RINO.
Constituents revolted and held to their ground.
The RINO withdrew and proved the point by supporting the Democrat.
Meanwhile, the real Conservative in the race surged and came close.
Kick the RINOs out!
Scuzzy was the type of “R” to get rid of. You do it over and over until the party leadership learns or until you have become the party leadership.
Even if the “D” won, the party felt pain. You must keep the pain up to get your way.
You also need to infiltrate and replace your local GOP and replace and outnumber the country-clubbers.
Thanks Doug, you tried. Hopefully it will work out better for us next time.
Over the years I've noticed that those who most often advocate that we can't really accomplish anything until we "change hearts and minds" do the least to actually change hearts and minds.
For if the trumpet makes an uncertain sound, who will prepare for battle? -- I Corinthians 14:8
Bob this was a victory. WE — not you — kept a RINO from blocking the way forward. If not for OUR — not your — support and encouragement the RINO would have won an interim election and then would have been the Republican on the ballot in 2010. WE WON a ballot position for a real conservative REPUBLICAN IN 2010.
We also won a great moral victory on the ground there — a INDEPENDENT PURE CONSERVATIVE nearly won — the final ballot counting is not even settled and will not be for a few weeks as the absentees are counted. It is unlikely that Hoffman will win — but the race is so dang close that it is still an outside possibility that Hoffman could win!
Bob J — rejoin the winners and quit the whiners.
I heard on tv last night that after the census this district will probably be gerrymandered out of existence into a new solid Democrat district, so in the long run its probably lost forever anyway.
I agree with some of what you say however a proper pre-election review of the candidates should have demonstated that there was a high probablity that Scozzafava was going to defect to the Democrats as soon as she got in.
Personally I look at this as training for 2010, to address the problems in the process, improve research and communication and to improve the candidate selection process.
But the fault DOES lay with Newt, Steele, etc.
Maybe some but not all by a long shot. After all it was the 11 county chairs that made the selection from 9 candidates. It wasn’t Steele nor Newt that made that selection. Now I don’t know that the make up of the local county GOP organizations are in each of those 11 counties but I’d lay the blame more at their feet than the national GOP leadership.
I was looking a county in Texas I’m somewhat familiar with and in the GOP organization there are over 50% of the precincts without a chair to represent them in the county group. So take it to the lowest level, the precinct and see where a lot of the failure begins.
I believe Rush said yesterday that many people had voted for her before she dropped out,probably absentee.
I think we should continue onward as yesterday was just the beginning of a revolt that needs to spread across this country against RINO’s and liberals, at least we learned yesterday that conservative ideals are not dead or going away.
Wait, wait - that was the plan before the election.
This was a 100-year GOP seat, held by a trucon + RINO coalition. You kicked the damn RINOs out. You were left with 44% of the vote. You need 51% to win.
EPIC FAIL.
Well said, sir.
I am certain that this thread might go several hundred posts with people still not getting my point, they probably never will.
Change, in America or the GOP, will not come at the end of a scream or threat. It will come only when we change the hearts and minds of the voters doing the actual electing.
I can’t make it any simpler than that, but still, most will keep the blinders on, shouting, screaming and lighting their pitchforks.
They will lead us all to ruin.
Bob J
I could almost be with you on this except......
Scuzzy should not have been picked by the party (read her friend) putting the other country leaders on the spot and the Republican party should not have run attack ads against the conservative.
Those were the two unforgivable sins in all this.
Everything else could be debatable.
Oh I see, if I am a registered as a republican then I should vote republican no matter what candidate wears the republican label. Basically that is what Newt said and it appears to be what you are saying BJ.
Here is the lesson, pal..........We won, and it was a huge victory...not only did the lib rino show her true colors, the conservative ran on a third party, and kept the margin within 5 points....the GOP and RNCC just got slapped hard, and if they do not see this, they deserve to wail in the darkness of political irrelevence...
Wrong. See post #9.
Are you done crying in your beer? It was a loss, it happens, get over it. If 2% of the voters had decided differently Hoffman would be heading to Washington right now. I don’t know if people were attaching all their hopes and fears to this one election, but in any event it wasn’t going to change the makeup of the House.
Here's how: those folks were pissed at the way she was shoved out of the race, and decided to vote for her anyway.
A week and a half ago, it was reported that Hoffman had stated that, if he lost, he intended to run in the 2010 primary as a Republican.
So, he may not be “wandering into the sunset”.
It will also be interesting to see what position in the Obomba Administration Dedetee Scuzzyfaker will be taking.
In the 23NY, a liberal and a conservative ran. The liberal won... which says more about the voters in that district than it does the country club.
Newt and Steele supported the letter “R”, and did not consider any of the ideals of the person behind that moniker... For Newt to support such an obvious flaming liberal did nothing but cynically marginalize conservatives who are fed up with the status quo. Steele is an absolute joke. If you asked him to define Republicanism, he would have no answer. And he certainly doesn’t give a crap about conservatism.
No, at some point, heads need to roll. When the “heads” reveal themselves to be the enemy, no amount of local, grassroots effort will overcome the money and mouthpiece they have at their disposal.
You don't know that (unless you live there, do you?).
Most RINOs will never support trucons. According to national polling, trucons are about 40% of the voters. The other 10% needs to come from RINOs or DINOs.
We don't know Hoffman's ability to appeal to RINOs or DINOs. Given his desire to purge RINOs, it seems improbable that he could have gotten the 6% he needed from there. Owens is a vet and probably has high DINO appeal.
Do the frickin' math! Hoffman started with 44% and added zero, so he lost.
What disaster are you talking about?
If left unmolested by meddling conservatives, NY-23 would have elected a liberal to congress. That liberal may have had a D after the name or an R, but would have voted as a liberal either way.
Instead, the meddling conservatives got involved and forced the complacent GOP to notice that we are here and we are a force.
Plus, we gave the actual voters of NY-23 an actual choice in candidates. They didn't choose as we would have wished, but those wins will come in other districts with smarter voters.
Suck it up, glassjaw.
DeDe Scuzzy-whatever was an @sshole, and she erased all doubts about that over the last three days of the race.
The GOP will be back for this one again in 2010, which (ironically) may be the last year this district even exists. New York has been hemhorraging voters for decades, and will likely lose a few more House seats after the 2010 census.
“that led us to disaster in NY-23”
A true Conservative lost by 4 points. After, not being nominated. After, scorn from the leftist republicans and dems. After, his republican opponent quit, and 2 days from the election, threw her support to the democrat opponent.
This is not a disaster. This is a wake up call.
As the Roman General might have put it, "one more such 'victory' will undo us."
I’m not shouting, screaming or lighting pitchforks (not sure what that is) but I always vote - always talk conservative issues and make sure EVERYONE knows how a conservative sounds.
I will just vote for myself if the repub party doesn’t pick my choice - sorry - I wont compromise.
There are no easy answers’ but there are simple answers. We must have the courage to do what we know is morally right. - Ronald Reagan
Yes, the RINO’s need to go. To simply win at any cost while discarding your values does not sit well with your average conservative.
I sincerely hope that this is the beginning of the end of compromising principles just to claim victory. The current GOP “elites” are no better than their cohorts on the left. They do not care a whit for their constituencies and are only focused on keeping their jobs. They believe that the country as a whole is moving to the left and that conservatives are quickly becoming a far right fringe extremist faction. Note their desire to draw votes from liberals by running candidates who share the values of liberals, conservative values be damned as long as they can claim a Republican victory.
Enough is enough. Replacing the Republican party with a Conservative based party is not an overnight task but the job must be done one way or another, from within or without.
Who knows - several of them might be on this very thread, accusing the more principled among us of losing this race.
Gee, I wish Bob had said that.... Oh, wait. He did say that!
Will you record a video of your Superior Dance and put it on Youtube?
I’d love to watch it.
lessons to be drawn...
-Unless you are planning to be on a mission trip in the jungles of Bolivia on Election Day, you are a FOOL to vote by absentee ballot! (anything can happen between the day you mail it and election day...your candidate could die, drop out, get indicted, etc.)
-The Straight Party Handle on voting machines is the Devil’s Plaything! Makes me sick to think of how many muddle-headed Republican voters must have pulled that handle not realizing that their vote was not registering for Hoffman.
-Any candidate who strays from the party’s core beliefs as far as Scuzzababe is really a Democrat, and at the end of the day, is just going to turn around and stab you in the back anyway.
-A national third-party mechanism just MIGHT be necessary, if only to keep the two dominant parties from starving a guy like Hoffman of desperately needed campaign funding.
-Any incumbent GOP Congressman who would create this situation in the first place by accepting an appointment from a Democrat administration needs to be drummed out of the party one step behind Scuzzababe.
“Over the years I’ve noticed that those who most often advocate that we can’t really accomplish anything until we “change hearts and minds” do the least to actually change hearts and minds.”
From you of all people, that’s an idiotic statement.
A loss is a loss, FRiend. And with re-districting coming up, that's a serious thing.
You are spot-on! This is absolute RINOistic expediency and is total bullspin.
We need to keep articulating our core-republic principles and vociferously not let others define us and, at the same time, challenge their definitions.
What did the no name Hoffman lose by less than 3%? That’s pretty amazing for an outsider with no name and 5+% going to Scozzafuzzy..If he can do that without being organized, just think what it could be.
I tuned out Pat Buchanan style politics when he took up a pitchforks as his symbolic political tool.
We have to gently change their minds first before the change we desire will come. Shouting in peoples faces only gets them wet and you out of breath.
Maybe if you started off with this advise instead of your typical accusatory tone using a pitchfork style admonition I might start paying attention to you.
AMEN!
and not to mention the amount of $$$ and power were behind Owens........
the real storyline on this election is about Pelosi’s “astro-turf” lie.....
Hoffman’s campaign was 100% grassroots/tea party spirit....and he lost by a few % points to the COMBINED RNC and DNC machine...
keep spinning Nancy...keep spinning....
Hoffman was on his way to winning before Dede dropped out and endorsed the Democrat. She also took just enough vote to keep the race from being closer. What happened in that race is unfortunate but we can be thankful that though we now have a Democrat in that seat that he will be up for reelection in 2010. I believe Doug Hoffman and his supporters of which I count myself should spend the time till then working on preparing to win in 2010. We need more hardworking common men like Hoffman who reflect the vision upon which this nation was founded and rise not because it is easy or that they seek power but because they truly love there country not as they will change it to be like Europe or Socialist nations but as it is at its most unique and best. Getting into arguments about “practical politics” verses ideology is like debating whether a donuts are better than a nutritious meal. Donuts are a good occasionally but it is the muscle, those principles, that keep us strong. We have seen over and over again that winning with a loser isn’t winning at all because those like Dede S. turn our victories into bittersweet eulogies, they blur the lines at a time in history when clarity is what is needed more than every before. Hoffman lost because of the chaos and the lack of time to respond to increased attacks and a bitter pseudo-Republican who had to have the last word. Don’t let this be the last we think of NY-23. Lets finish the job in 2010.
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